The Gideon Affair
Copyright © 2015 by Suzanne Halliday
THE GIDEON AFFAIR
ISBN: 978-0-9961894-9-1
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This book is meant for mature readers who are 18+. It contains explicit language, and graphic sexual content.
Edited by
Editing for Indies
Book Cover Design by
Sara Eirew
Formatting By
Champagne Formats
Cover Model:
Pierre-Luc Lanthier
Table of Contents
“I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage – unless you have an agent and pay him a commission.”
–
Jean Giraudoux
,
The Madwoman of Chaillot
“O
h, no. Here he comes,” an anxious gasp next to her declared. “Move. I’m squished.”
“Shh,” she snapped in a harsh whisper. “And stop fidgeting. Just be quiet and we’ll be fine.”
Peering through a crack in the closet door where they hid, Paige’s breath caught when the door to the trailer whooshed open. It hit the siding with a tremendous bang, making her companion flinch.
Flashing a menacing glare and a silently delivered, “Shh,” she elbowed the young woman by her side and hoped their sounds didn’t give them away.
Voices carried from outside, but she wasn’t able to make out what was said. Didn’t matter, not really. All she cared about was that he came into the trailer by himself. Catching him alone was imperative. No way did she want an audience.
There was a thud, followed shortly by another. Slow, plodding footsteps and grunts accompanied his climb up the short steps. A moment of heavy silence fell. Paige wondered if they’d been discovered, but then a long, drawn-out sigh drifted through the air, and she relaxed.
So far, so good.
Careful not to make so much as a rustling sound, she tilted her head to the side and peeked through the crack again. Even turned as he was with most of his back to her, she’d recognize the man anywhere.
Looking an awful lot like a refugee from a homeless camp, he wore a long coat that at one time might have been a khaki color but was now filthy and splattered with dirt and grime.
Hunched over slightly as if the effort to stand straight was too much, he shuffled to the couch—the exertion bringing a strained groan from his throat.
Beside her, a stifled giggle at the man’s obvious distress got Paige’s eyes rolling. Talk about laughing at the wrong damn time!
A mighty croak, something that landed halfway between a grunt and cry, echoed as he tore off the dirty overcoat and flung it aside. Not that it made much difference. The clothes beneath it were equally disheveled and grimy.
Clutching the back of the sofa, he leaned for a brief second, and then, with a tremendous growl, he tore at his shirt until the sides hung open.
Paige shrank back in mute concern. Damn. She hadn’t considered that he might get undressed while they skulked in the closet. Now, what should she do? Decisions, decisions.
The sound of a brief struggle, typical for an elderly man taking his clothes off, got her heart thumping. And then there was a loud clunk and a half-muttered curse.
One more peek and then she’d decide what to do.
The man turned toward the closet. No longer hunched and bowed from the fake, weighted belly strapped to his middle, he straightened, and Paige almost laughed. It was like watching a Transformer click into shape.
A clean white t-shirt that in no way resembled the cruddy clothes he’d removed was tossed onto the growing pile of clothing strewn on the floor. And just like that, the elderly senior who’d labored up the stairs looking like a man close to his last breath vanished. Instead of a wrinkled, saggy chest covered with gray hair, a six-pack calendar torso mocked her voyeur’s gaze.
Phooey. Her skin prickling in all the wrong spots warned Paige that she was on thin ice. Despite the fun of lurk-stalking the quickly disrobing man, she knew it was time to act before hormones ruined their carefully thought out plan.
Nudging her sidekick, Paige held up three fingers, then two, then one. She motioned with her head that it was time to move and forcefully opened the closet door with a mighty kick. Rushing headlong into the tiny room, the clamor of their abrupt appearance would have startled the Buddha himself.
“Surprise!” the young woman fast on her heels squealed as they rushed toward the astonished, half-naked Adonis gaping at them. “Happy Birthday, Gideon,” she shouted excitedly.
Paige liked the plump girl with crazy hair and the organizational skills of the Queen’s private secretary. Carolyn was a worker bee with a green tea obsession that took having an excess of energy to an eleven. Sometimes, like now, her caffeine-fueled exuberance made Paige cringe. That and the girl’s ardent fangirling over every breath their boss took were exhausting.
“What the shit?” Gideon whooped huskily, a sly smile tugging the corners of his strikingly kissable lips.
Wait a minute! She knew that look. They hadn’t surprised him at all. He was just playing nice for Carolyn’s benefit.
“It was Paige’s idea,” her assistant trilled excitedly. Shoving an ice-cream cake in his face with one hand, she struggled to maintain her grip on a bundle of helium balloons that had shockingly survived the closet-bursting stunt.
Closet-bursting stunt. Ha! She’d have to add that to her extensive résumé of worthless piffle. Accomplishments: burst out of the closet. In this insane town, that alone was likely to get her an interview. It was a shame that none of the stupid bullshit that cluttered her work experience was of any value. A Hollywood work history had the tendency to run along the lines of absurd. Something that, after nearly six years as Gideon Shaw’s personal assistant, she knew all too well.
The warm smile he gave Carolyn was like a punch to Paige’s stomach, threading through her nervous system and heading straight to her privates. That damn knowing smirk of his always made her wet. And exactly what the hell did that say about her?
“Was it now? Hmm.” The droll tone he delivered with such ease earned a stern eye from her. “Leave it to Paige.” He laughed at his joke and then quipped, “Actually, sounds like a great pitch idea for a reality show.”
Punctuating the comment with a flirty wink at her adoring assistant was overkill.
What. A. Shithead.
“Don’t make me regret this, Shaw,” she muttered in a cool, overly polite voice. Straightening her shoulders, Paige pushed a pair of glasses up the bridge of her nose with her middle finger. Yes, that finger.
Carolyn’s fangirl-gasm, though annoying and getting old, could not have been timed more perfectly. The dull ache in her back and a sharp twinge every so often real low in her belly reminded Paige this was her time of the month to say less and listen more. Letting him work her into a snit until holy-hormonal hell broke loose and she chopped him into tiny manageable pieces before scattering them to the wind was only going to give him a laugh attack.
“Oh, you two!” Carolyn comically bawled. “Cut it out and let’s have cake!”
The pink-haired ball of energy hurried to the kitchenette, dropping the solid ice-cream cake onto the counter with a loud thud. “It’s chocolate,” the girl swooned. “Your favorite, Gideon!”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Rolling her eyes at the object of Carolyn’s drooling display, she snapped at their boss. “Cover up before she self-combusts.”
Snickering, he reached for the t-shirt thrown on the floor while Paige tried not to stare, something at which she failed miserably.
Standing nearly six-foot-three, Gideon Shaw was a card-carrying member of the panty-melting hot guy club. Broad shouldered and lean, he was muscled in all the right places but not in a crazy steroid way. The natural symmetry to his physique suggested a physically active man more than a pumped up bodybuilder.
She gave him a quick once-over before the t-shirt slid on, covering the unusual tribal ink at his waist that she knew extended down his hip. Having seen him countless times in nothing but briefs, she was aware of the marking. Even more so after one memorable occasion when he’d been wearing what the industry refers to as a cock sock for his privates—an absolute requirement in his contract. There would be no full frontal for Mister Gideon Shaw.